You Again
by debbiechan
Summary: Gin. Rangiku. Spoiler for manga chapter 314.


**You Again**

**by debbiechan**

Disclaimer: The characters of Ichimaru Gin and Matsumoto Rangiku are owned by their creator, Kubo Tite, Shueisha Inc. Perriot Studios, and Viz Media.

Description: R. GinRan written for bleachflashfic. _Spoiler for manga chapter 314._

f_or yamikinoko_

"_I would have enjoyed being captured a little while longer." Gin to Rangiku, chapter 178._

1.

One morning she mistook his leg for her arm. 

His leg could be a girl's undernourished arm--it was smooth and white enough. She reached for him, felt resistance in an unexpected place, and realized that her arm was trapped under his spine and that his leg was thrown over her shoulder.

They were a tangle of nude limbs.

Hunger defined the differences. When she longed for him, she knew who she was. When she was happy and satiated, like now, she could not tell where her body ended and where Gin's began.

"Get off me." She pushed at his thigh.

"Wah!" He sprung up, arms flailing.

Rangiku snorted a laugh.

"Ow." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Your knee… I fell asleep on it." 

Rangiku's body was tingling back to life. She wasn't fully awake.

Settling next to the futon, Gin crouched low, like a frog, except a frog has broader thighs. 

"I forgot you were here," she admitted through her sleepiness. She stretched her arms and felt a smile stretch across her face. "You disappear so …" She yawned the next word. "_Often_ …."

Yesterday he wasn't here, last night he was.

If he went missing for a few days, she entertained herself practicing the kidou spells they'd picked up from mystics here and there, wore herself out, confused loneliness with the rumbles of hunger in her stomach. 

His perpetual smile was bigger when he saw her again. He would hold a round persimmon steady while she bit into it. He loved to feed her.

"You're getting skinnier." A playful tone. "Tsk. I think I cut myself on you last night."

2.

In the beginning, he knew all the answers and his arms held all the fruit. A hundred years passed and she out-weighed him, but he still out-smarted her.

His very first words to her had been, "_You fainted from hunger. That means you have the power."_

Her powers, whatever they were, became obvious to her as her body filled out and she found the opportunity to wash her hair more often. In Shinigami Academy, she was handed a wooden sword but later, her blade, like the gold locks she'd learned to treat with camellia oil, glistened with a summoned power. 

She could kill a Hollow.

She could make men stop in their tracks and look weak and watery-eyed when she smiled.

She should've seen it coming when Gin betrayed Soul Society.

"How could you know?" Kira whined into the empty bottle. His voice sounded like rain. "How could anyone know?"

"I knew him better than anyone else."

Her power was part of Gin's; it had fed hers by hand. He had held her by the neck once and filled her mouth with taste after taste, one longing after another. She could make him show his true smile. 

"You saved Hinamori," Kira went on. He was wearing his sake cup over his nose so his voice now sounded like a baby's. "You were going to _fight_ Captain Ichimaru for her life, weren't you?"

Gin had never fought Rangiku, not really. He'd introduced her to knife-throwing, shown her how to hide her intent before drawing the blade. They had sparred infrequently before entering the academy and then after--

She still felt that she had some command over him. She could make him drop his guard, lower his weapon, walk away without revealing his full power.

"He wouldn't fight me."

As many times as Rangiku's body had met Gin's to satisfy her many hungers, she'd never tested her zanpakutou against his.

Her true soul against his.

3.

The butterflies emerged from the dangai in a random pattern but the Shinigami officers did not. Each captain materialized in the human world by his or her rank in the Gotei 13, and vice-captains appeared behind their captains.

Rangiku's captain stepped onto a rooftop. His small hands dangled by his side; his sword was such a great length away on his back but Rangiku knew how quickly he could draw.

Not one of the Shinigami was poised for battle. They were waiting against a blue sky.

Aizen was going to invade Karakura Town, and the traitor captains Tousen Kaname and Ichimaru Gin would be with him. Rangiku could not sense Gin's reiatsu yet, but she felt his coming in how much she longed for him.

She was utterly herself--loyal to the set of values chiseled into her spirit by Shinigami training but also the smiling girl that Gin had nurtured, the girl with a robust humor and a fondness for pink silks, salty desserts, and sake, sake, more sake. Her foot bounded off the roof and she hovered in the sky next to her captain. It was exciting to be listening for whispers of an intrusion; battle thrilled all warriors; not one of her companions didn't want war right now.

She wanted Gin.

He always came back to her--it wasn't like he'd ever required bewitching either. He wanted her. His power fed off hers, his fake optimism got charged by her real optimism, his bony knees pressed against her fleshy ones until ….

D_amn you, Gin._

Even when they were officers, when she tried her best to call him "Captain Ichimaru" in front of others, she knew he'd come back.

Sunrise was a confusion of colors through the paper window shade. His voice was always thin and lilting: "Oh look, _you again_. How did I get here? All these quarters look the same from the outside." His nose against her brow. "Oh yes. Fancy, fancy. Throwing away your salary on hair products again. This is what drew me here--_mmmmm_. Candy hair, good enough to eat."

High winds over Karakura rolled through the captains' hakama, sleeves fluttered, no one spoke.

Her body was as full of memories as her hair was full of the wind. A grieving that is sexual desire, a joy like a little girl's on her birthday. _Gin, Gin, don't you walk away from me this time._

D_on't you dare walk away._

END

Oh, I've been in such a writing slump. Thank you, all you smexy Bleach seiyuu for disco-ing me out of it with the Bleach Beat collections. This piece was written while listening to my favorite, the Ichimaru Gin CD.

O_ccasionally you show me your true smile. from the Gin/Rangiku duet "Fuyu no Hanabi" _


End file.
